Salvation, With Fear & Trembling
by Motsie of Atlantis
Summary: Eric Beale has to deal with a new partner to rescue Callen and Sam. Is he going to be able to work with this dark-haired intelligence analyst that he has just met, or will her allegiances be too great a problem for him? Then they still have to find the submarine. A One Shot written for #EricAppreciationWeek for NCIS:LA Magazine.


**Salvation, With Fear & Trembling**

**A/N.** This is a one shot written for #EricAppreciationWeek on the NCIS:LA Magazine's website. The story takes place during and after Season 5, Episode 24, "Deep Trouble". I want to thank G for continuing my education in basic Russian for this story and V for her encouragement in working some things out.

**Disclaimer:** Thanks to Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan, for teaching me to play with the fantastic characters and sets that they have created. Since I don't own them, they made me promise that I return them by their curfew. Although they might be slightly (?) battered and bruised, I did send them home. All the original characters that you do not recognize, are slaving away for me, trying to come up with an original idea for the next story that I might write.

**Salvation, With Fear & Trembling**

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Staff Sergeant Jason Beale was tired. He had just been asked to sign up for a fourth tour in VietNam, but he was so tired. He was tired of all the wanton destruction of the native villages and the countryside. He was tired of seeing each and every new soldier come into his unit, only to leave zipped up in a body bag, or have their dog tags turned over to graves registration with an approximate location of where they were buried. He was tired of not being home to watch his son and daughter grow up, to teach Eric how to throw a football, hit a baseball with a bat, or just help him climb a tree, to watch Monica go to dance class, play house with her dolls, or be her guest at an outdoor tea party. He was tired of falling asleep every night on a rickety cot in a steamy Quonset hut with thirty other guys, instead of the queen sized bed in his quiet bedroom with only Karin, his lovely wife, curled up next to him. He was just so tired of all the life that this war was sucking from his body, and even worse, his soul.

But coming home did not restore the fatigue of his body and soul. His PTSD seemed to take control of him more and more as he disconnected from his family and life. His son was extremely uncoordinated, and could not catch a ball of any type, even if his life depended upon it, because no one ever worked to help him overcome his vision problems. His daughter did not share her little girl fantasies with him. Instead, she looked upon him as a monster, someone to hide from behind her mother's skirts, because she never knew him as a young girl growing up. His wife Karin spent all her time working in the office of the real estate company, or trying to care for the kids. She had been doing it for such a long time while he was over in 'Nam that it had become routine for her and now filled up her life. No one from his family seemed to want to work with him to bring help him bring his dreams into reality.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Eric Beale was always fearful of new things and places, but he always denied that he was afraid. His definition was that he did not like change. If things stayed the same, he was happy. If things did not, he was not. He waited until two weeks after his due date before his mother was induced for his birth. He came out kicking and screaming, as if he wanted to go back to the comfort of his mother's womb.

When Eric was two years old, it was discovered that he was farsighted, and couldn't see anything very close unless it was printed extremely large. His mother took him to get glasses and two days later he heard the term "four eyes" referring to him for the first time. Unfortunately for him, it would not be the last time he was called that name. He tried going without his glasses as often as he could, but his eyes just seemed to get worse, and finally he was forced to wear them.

All through childhood he was teased and bullied. He never was very well coordinated, so he was the last one chosen for any games, and the others let him know that they really didn't want him on their teams. The less he played, the less he improved, and the less he improved, the less he played. It became such a vicious cycle that he finally decided to break it by not even showing up to play.

He especially didn't like it if the things that changed were how people looked at him and treated him. When he studied hard and got the top grades in his class throughout grade school, the rest of the kids mocked him because of it and called him "teacher's pet" among other names. His senior year of high school he was invited to go to the prom by a girl he really liked, but the day before the dance she called him and told him she was going with someone else.

Even his parents changed how they looked at him. He remembered when he was thirteen years old, just ready to go to high school. His Dad was at the VA hospital and his Mom was working that day. His parents had put him in charge of watching his sister, Monica, who was three years younger than he was.

She was riding her bike up and down the front sidewalk as he mowed the lawn. All of a sudden she yelled out to him, " Look at me, Eric," as she took both of her hands off the handlebars and turned to see if he was looking at her.

"Monica, don't do that," he yelled at her. Her front wheel went off the sidewalk into the grass as she lost control of her bike. She crashed into the car that was parked there in front of the house. A piece of chrome trim on the car came loose and severed her carotid artery and she bled to death in his arms. He didn't know what to do, beyond trying to stop the bleeding and screaming for help at the top of his lungs. One of his neighbors saw what happened and called 911. The police and paramedics come, but Monica was gone.

His mother blamed him for Monica's death, because he did not watch her better. His dad just seemed to retreat further and further into himself. Pretty soon Jason was spending more time in the VA hospital than he was at home, and finally, he did not come home at all.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

**2014**

Eric and Nell had been working hard all morning to find out where the drug submarine could have gone. It was Nell's turn to go out and bring in lunch, and she got Eric's order. All the agents were out on the case, so she stopped in Granger's office to find if he wanted anything brought back for him. When he said "No" to her plans for sushi, she left, but she picked up more than just lunch. She bought 4 burn phones, made a call on one, then typed all four of the numbers into each phone. On one she added an address and then went back to OPS with their lunch.

Nell really wished that she would have learned American Sign Language so she could communicate with Eric without anyone else hearing. She thought about other ways to get the information to Eric, and finally picked up her tablet and started typing –

ERIC, OPEN UP A TEXT FILE ON YOUR TABLET – I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU – ERASE ALL YOUR MESSAGES AFTER YOU READ THEM OR SHOW THEM TO ME

OK, WHAT IS IT?

GRANGER THINKS THIS IS ALL ABOUT DRUGS, YOU KNOW I THINK IT IS TERRORISM

YOU HAVE ANY REAL PROOF TO SHOW HIM

JUST CIRCUMSTANTIAL RIGHT NOW – COULD YOU FIND THAT SUB

I WOULD HAVE TO ACCESS SATELLITES TO DO IT AND GRANGER WILL NOT LET ME DO THAT

WHAT IF THEY WERE NOT OUR SATELLITES? COULD YOU STILL DO IT?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN – NOT OUR SATELLITES

NOT BELONGING TO THE US – FROM SOME OTHER COUNTRY

YOU JUST CAN'T GO HACKING INTO ANOTHER COUNTRY'S SATELLITES WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION – GRANGER WOULD FIRE ME FOR SURE – BUT GIVEN THE RIGHT ACCESS, I CAN HACK INTO ANYTHING – I FIND THE RIGHT SATELLITE – I FIND THE SUB

GOOD, YOU ARE GONNA GET SICK BECAUSE OF THE SUSHI, AND TELL GRANGER YOU NEED TO LEAVE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. TURN YOUR OWN PHONE OFF AND REMOVE THE SMART CARD. TAKE THIS BURN PHONE AND GO TO THE ADDRESS YOU FIND THERE. I THINK THEY WILL HAVE WHATEVER YOU NEED.

BUT WHERE AM I GOING AND WHO...

JUST DO IT - ERIC - I WILL CALL YOU LATER ON THE BURN PHONE OK?

THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT GRANGER IS GONNA USE TO GET RID OF ME – IS IT

NO – IF IT WORKS LIKE I HOPE GRANGER WILL NEVER KNOW ABOUT IT AND CALLEN AND SAM WILL BE BACK SOON

I'M NOT GONNA GET FRELTED AGAIN – EVERY TIME I LEAVE OPS SOMETHING ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME

NO ONE IS GONNA HURT YOU – I'LL DO MY BEST TO SEE THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN

YOUR BEST?

ERIC...

OK, I DON'T LIKE IT BUT I'LL DO IT – YOU SURE I WON'T GET HURT

FINE – I PROMISE YOU WON'T GET HURT - NOW CLEAR YOUR TABLET AND TAKE IT WITH YOU

Eric took the burn phone, grabbed his bag and went to Granger's office. "Assistant Director, sir, I am feeling a little queasy. I'm afraid there might have been something wrong with the sushi."

"The whole idea of take out sushi is just wrong" Granger said, shaking his head. "You have no control over keeping it cool and fresh. OK, Beale, take off. I'd rather you get sick in your car or at home than puke all over the computers in ops."

"Thank you, sir."

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Eric went to his car and pulled out his regular phone, making sure it was off and the smart card was removed as Nell told him. He knew that by doing this, no one from the OSP could use that phone to reach him, and no one could track his location by homing in on it. He shook his head at all the secrecy, still a little fearful about what he was doing, but went along with it.

He began to wonder where he was really going as he plugged the address Nell had placed on his burn phone into his car's GPS. He was instructed to drive out of the valley and into the hills on the outskirts of the city. Directed to turn off onto a private road, he was surprised to find the road blocked off by an iron gated security fence, and two of the biggest guards he had ever seen, each with a weapon that looked more like it belonged on a battlefield, rather than in the city.

They asked for his driver's license and he handed over his wallet. One of the guards started going though all the cards in the wallet, and when he came to Eric's NCIS identification, he put everything back in, handed the wallet back to the young tech, and told him to drive straight up to the house and someone would meet him there. He nodded to the other guard who pressed a control that opened up the gate, and then picked up a phone, waited a minute or two, and announced, "He's on his way."

Eric drove up the winding road, and was completely blown away when he made the last turn and the house, if you could indeed call it a house, came into view. It was huge and looked like it could be one of those exclusive hotels for the rich and famous. There were several men standing on the edge of the circular drive that went up to the front of the structure, one waving at him to drive his car over toward them.

Eric got out of the car and the white haired man in the center looked him up and down with a critical eye. Eric was still dressed for work – green board shorts, a green checked shirt over his dark brown tee shirt and of course, his flip-flops. The old man turned to the man of his right, laughing, and said, "This is a joke, right? I should call that little redheaded girl and tell her that not even Callen would work with someone like this."

Eric got a little defensive when he heard him talk that way about Nell. He had a major crush on his partner, even though he wasn't quite sure how she really felt about him. She was one person that he would defend to the hilt.

"Look, I don't know who you are, or what you claim to be, but you can't talk about my partner that way. I know we both are young, but she and I have done things you could only dream of. If you have known Callen, then I'm sure you understand that I can't tell you what those things are, but you can be sure that he has complete confidence in us techs as we back him up and keep him alive and safe."

"Calm down. It was not your age on which I was commenting. In fact, I was afraid that I would have had a hard time to convince you to work with one of our techs, who also is quite young. What I was commenting on was your choice of attire."

"My clothes? I have to wear shorts. I have sensitive thighs"

With that, the old man let out a huge belly laugh. "Never fear, your secret is safe here. I am Arkady Kolcheck and you are now at the Russian Cultural Ministry. No one from your goverment or your organization will be able to come in here and question you about your sensitive thighs."

"This is Russian territory? Eric asked. _**I am so screwed. When Granger finds out about this, he is gonna revoke all my security clearances and I won't even be able to be a janitor at OSP.** _Eric thought._ **I am gonna kill Nell for doing this to me.**_

"You have nothing to worry about. Your Nell Jones has put in a request with your director of NCIS for you to assist us in the search for a lost sailor from one of our Russian subs. Your director has agreed to our request and you are on loan to us for the duration of this mission. This is a need to know mission and the paperwork has already been presented to protect you."

"You realize that I will not give up any goverment secrets," Eric said defensively, fearing that he would be tortured like Sam and Deeks were by Siderov.

"You will not be expected to give up any secrets. We will not ask for any of yours and expect that you will not ask for any of ours. You will not be allowed to download anything from our computers into your systems and we will not download anything from your systems into our computers. If at any time you feel that we have gone back on this arrangement, you can leave and report everything that you have seen and done here. This is the arrangement we agreed to for helping you to help take down another one of these terrorist organizations. Is this something you can live with?"

"I guess, if both Nell and the Director have signed off on it."

"Fine, come inside and you can get right to work."

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Arkady led Eric into the building and through a magnificent entrance hall. Antique paintings lined the walls with little brass plaques underneath them, bearing the names of the paintings and artists in both Cyrillic and English. There was a small alcove off to the right at the end of the room. Arkady pressed a button and a door slid aside. They entered the hidden elevator and the old man pressed the bottom button.

Eric was completely blown away when the door opened shortly thereafter. Here was a communication systems setup that, on the surface, looked almost as elaborate and complete as the one he left in OSP not more than an hour ago. There was a woman seated at one of the consoles. Arkady spoke to her in Russian. "Sveta, could you come here, please."

The young woman got up and started walking toward them. "You will be working with my granddaughter, Svetlana." Arkady told Eric.

Svetlana Kolcheck was about two inches taller than Nell, with long dark brown hair that looked almost black and reached almost to her waist. Her age appeared to be very close to his and Nell's and, although he was too much of a gentleman to guess her weight, her petite body reminded him a lot of his partner at OSP. She was dressed in a crisp fawn colored linen pants suit over a deep dark chocolate brown blouse and matching dark brown boots with just a hint of a heel.

As she extended her hand to him, Eric found that his voice had deserted him. Here was another young beautiful woman whose life had intersected his. He must have died and gone to heaven. Could he ask all the deities that he knew of that she might know her way around a computer too?

He finally gulped a couple of times, shook her hand, and managed to blurt the words out, "Hi, I'm Eric Beale. I work for Naval Criminal Investigative Services."

"Hi, I'm Svetlana Kolcheck, but please call me Sveta. I work for my grandfather's private security firm. He's a retired KGB officer, that's why there is this communications setup here."

"Your English is perfect. I'm afraid I don't know any Russian except for Do svidaniya, and I know that this isn't the right time to say that."

He was so surprised when she laughed at his little joke. Most of the time when he attempted to make a joke at OSP, he found that it usually fell flat. The best that he usually got from any of the members of the team was a raised eyebrow, followed by a shrug of the shoulders that indicated they did not get it.

"My English is good because I was born and raised here in California. I received a full four year athletic scholarship for Gymnastics at Cal State Fullerton, and received my BA in computer science there. I went on to USC here in Los Angeles for both my masters and doctorate."

"I was a Big 10 boy. I started out at Michigan, where I could still live at home and work weekends and holidays to help pay my tuition. I went to Purdue for my masters, and then off and on to the University of Illinois in Normal, for my doctorate."

She giggled at what he said, "I've heard of all of them; they are all good schools, and you know, you are the first person I know that was a Normal grad."

"Ahhh...normal was not the way that I would describe my doctoral studies."

"Why, what happened?"

Eric looked down and his voice grew very quiet as he said, "I got banned from Vegas."

"What was wrong, did the find out you were cheating, or counting cards?"

"No, something a lot worse than that..."

She waited almost a full minute for him to continue. When his silence continued, she asked him, "Well, are you gonna tell me or not?"

"OK, All the casinos subscribe to an automatic accounting system. This way if one gambler runs up a huge debt at one of the casinos, he can't just go across the street and start out fresh. It's on his record what he owes and where he owes it, so they can determine if they want to advance him any money or just cut him off until he pays what he owes."

"Sounds reasonable ... oh, no, what did you do" she said shaking her head as her whole body shook with the laughter she tried to contain within it.

"There were four of us attending a computer conference at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. It was our first night there so we all went down to the Strip. We watched one of the shows, did a little gambling and a lot of drinking. One of them bet me that I couldn't break into the accounting system and do something to let them know we were there. I accepted the challenge, and when we went back to our room, I hacked into the system, and changed all the debts into credits and all the credits into debts. Needless to say it was found out immediately. They started looking for who did it and traced it back to our hotel room. We all were completely afraid and none of us would admit to anything. Since they could not prove which one of us actually did it, all four of us were banned from ever setting foot in any casino again. They would have loved to ban us from even coming into the city, but they decided they couldn't legally do that"

The further he got into his explanation, the more Svetlanaa lost her hold on containing her laughter. She had to drop back into her console chair to avoid falling to the floor listening to the prank that Eric had committed.

"That was just part one," Eric continued. "Part two was when the police came."

"The police?" she asked, as she drew in a deep surprised breath.

"Yup. That was part two of the challenge. I needed to hack into a city government computer and leave them some sort of messge to let them know I had been there, too. I hacked into the city jail computers aand adjusted the amount of time that people were going to have to spend behind bars by automatically adding three zeroes to the amount of time they had to serve, so one year became a thousand years in jail."

Her deep green eyes were growing wider and wider and she held both her hands over her mouth as she tried to hold her laughter in.

'The police found out where the hacking came from, too, and it seemed that as soon as casino security left, the LVPD was there at the door. The ranking patrolman was a UNLV grad, and did not want to cause any trouble for the university, so he just told us to pack up all of our things, escorted us in police cars to the airport, and watched as we were loaded onto the first flight out of the city. As we were boarding the plane, he said that his lieutenant told him to tell us that if we ever were to set foot in Vegas again, we would be arrested and tossed into jail for ten thousand years, at the very minimum."

Finally, it just was too much and the laughter exploded from her and racked her whole body with its force for several seconds.

When she finally stopped laughing and was able to draw in a couple of deep breaths, she looked at him while she wiped the tears from her eyes. "I like you," she said. "I just wish I had the courage to try to do something like that. I really wish I was there to see them trying to deal with the mayhem you imposed on them."

"Well, it probably seems a lot more funny now than when it actually happened."

"Well now, about your submarine that you seem to have misplaced..."

"Wait a minute. First of all, it is not my submarine, and second, we did not misplace it." Eric tried to correct her.

She laughed at him again. "I'm sorry Eric, I didn't mean to upset you. I was watching the movie 'The Hunt for Red October' last night, and I couldn't help by try to make a joke about what you want us to help you with."

Eric joined her in a brief laugh. "I have not seen that movie in a long time. Deeks would have gotten that reference right away."

"Deeks?"

"One of my surfing buddies." he told her. He still was just a little leery of letting her know too much about the operations and people at OSP,

"You surf? I always wanted to learn how to do that. Maybe you could teach me someday?"

Eric tried to imagine what she would look like in a wet suit. He had tried so often to get Nell to come out with him to try to teach her the sport. Even Deeks had gotten Kensi to try it a couple of times and she seemed to like it a lot. But Nell claimed that her light complexion got burned too easily, and so usually stayed on the shore when she went along, covered from head to toe with a sun hat, beach clothes and a heavy slathering of zinc oxide, while he was out on the water.

"Eric, are you OK?" Svetlana asked him. "You seemed to have zoned out for a minute there."

"I'm sorry. I guess I was just thinking of something else. Yes. If you would really like to learn how to surf, I could teach you. We'll have to set something up after we get done with this case."

"So, what happened that you have come here, and how do you want me to help."

"The Brotherhood, a group of drug dealers here in LA, are looking to expand their control of the drug traffic in the city. We found that they forced a boat builder to design and build a submarine for them. If they got it operational, they could bring in thousands of tons of cocaine into the US from Columbia, undetected by the government, and use it to flood the streets of Los Angeles. Our Director thinks that this submarine is still in the hands of the drug lords."

"And you don't?"

"We have a lot of circumstantial evidence that seems to suggest that the submarine was sold or taken over by terrorists to use as weapon of mass destruction. There were some traces of ammonium nitrate found near the berth of the sub, that is the same stuff that was used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. We had two agents that were checking out the sub, and they and the sub have disappeared. We feel that the sub may be filled with ammonium nitrate and our two agents might be on board and held by those operating the submarine."

"And do you have any idea of the target of this weapon?"

"I don't know if I should give out that information. I mean, it's not general knowledge, but more like secret orders."

"OK, Eric, you have to decide how much this is worth to you. My grandfather thought the lives of your agents were worth enough that he let you know that this place existed...that he let you know that I existed. In the world of spies and espionage, secrets are power. The more secrets you have the more power you have. Arkady's, mine, yours, we all have them and these secrets like money. With them you can buy and sell favors, you can use the secrets to get people to do things for you or maneuver them into positions that they would rather not be in. All these things are possible, if you know how to leverage your secrets to your best advantage. Now, Eric, the big question that you have to decide, right here and now, are your agents' lives worth the secrets that you might have to spend?"

Eric thought it over for a moment, and decided that he had no choice. He had to trust her, and if it worked, Callen and Sam would be rescued, but if it blew up in his face, he just might get to spend that long vacation in a federal penitentiary from which Hetty had once saved him when he hacked the NSA computers.

"As part of her sea trials, the a newly built nuclear submarine, Nebraska, is going to conduct war games against the aircraft carrier, Carl Vinson, which has returned from her recent middle east deployment. There will be little or no defensive measures because the carrier crew is only partially staffed. Many of its men, making up the antisubmarine warfare unit, had been given liberty when it recently docked in San Diego. If the submarine is made of things like fiberglass and plastics, it could be virtually undetectable to the Carl Vinson and its escorts should the terrorists try to use it try to ram the Navy vessel."

"And you are not certain about this?"

"No. Not enough to convince anyone that they should take some preventive measures to look for that drug sub as a weapon."

"All right, and what is it you want of me and our people here?"

"I just want someone to look for that drug sub and stop it, if they are planning to use it as a weapon. We already have people who are looking for it that claim it is going down to Columbia to load up with drugs. If that's the case, fine. Then when they find it we can mount a rescue attempt for our agents there. But if it is a terrorist attack, and no one is looking for them, we will have lost two good agents needlessly."

The Russian intelligence agent wrote down a phone number on piece of paper and handed it to Eric. That is my personal phone number. If you need to contact me about this, use that number. We will do this operation on a need to know basis."

Eric pulled out his burn phone, checked the numbers that Nell had posted there, and gave Svetlana both his and Nell's number. "You can call either of us. Nell is my partner and one of my closest friends. She is the one who is really the mastermind of this project and I trust her with my life."

"Are you sure you want to add her number and give her that information? Not even my grandfather is going to know the details of this. He may know the general background, especially since he was contacted first about this mission. But he will not know any of the details. Arkady has his secrets. I have mine. We each may use them, or keep them and never use them. But that is for each of us to decide individually. We do not share information, unless it is absolutely necessary."

"Like I told you, she is my partner and I trust her with my life. Any information on this case that I have, I have no qualms of sharing with her. So, if you can't get ahold of me, then try her. She will either act upon it or share it with me, as she decides. And I completely trust her decisions."

"Very well. I don't like it, but I will do it that way. Did you have any plans on how to work out the rescue once you have found the drug submarine, if you got the go ahead and did it with American personnel?"

"If they did find the submarine, we would have called in a Navy SEAL team and drop them as close as possible to the target. They would take something down with them, a chain or metal bar to first disable the propulsion system of the sub. Then they would probably strap on a couple of inflatable rafts or zodiacs to the hull, pull the plugs and force it to the surface. Once there they could drop a couple of gas grenades down the hatch to disable the crew."

"What about informing your agents about what you are trying to do?"

"All SEALS know Morse Code. It is basically a second language for them. Sam Hanna is a former SEAL and would be able to get the message that was tapped out to him."

"I think we can do everything that you want. Of course, it all depends on our ability to discover the location of the sub."

"You have the Russian equivalent of SEALS here near Los Angeles? But could they tap out a message in Morse Code that a SEAL would understand. I know Callen speaks Russian, but I have no idea if he would know Morse Code."

"We have Naval Spetsnaz units [Special Purpose Combat Units] that would be available to us that could duplicate everything you would have the SEALS team do. They all would be able to speak English or Russian so they could communicate with your agents. I can't tell you where they are or how many of them there will be. This is not because I don't want to tell you. That is one of the undercovder groups whose secrets have not been shared with me up to this moment. Would you want me to set this all in motion?"

"Yes. Please help me find them."

"Very well. I will put in the request." Svetlana went to one of the computers and set up a Skype call. It was answered immediately, but the camera was blocked on the other end because no image was shown. She had a brief conversation in Russian with the male voice who answered her call, and then the connection was quickly broken.

Svetlana again looked at Eric, and told him. "Everything is set up. All we have to do now is find that submarine. Sit down in that chair over there and I will give you access to three of our satellites. You can watch each one on one of those three monitors."

She asked where the dock was from which the submarine had gone missing and the approximate time they first noticed it was gone. After he gave her the answers she needed, her fingers flew over her keyboard and the images appeared. She briefly explained to him how to use the keyboard he had on the deskk in front of him to control the views he received, and then she started watching four more monitors. Dang, he thought to himself, this girl could probably match Nell in a duel of computer skills. She probably had as many skills as a political analyst as his partner, certainly she had as many secrets. He was now glad that Nell had sent him out into the field to do this job.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

For the next five hours the two of them stared at the screens. Svetlana had sandwiches and coffee brought down for them to eat while they worked. Watching the screens was tiring, so much open water, with only an occasional boat or ship passing through the view of the satellites.

Then Eric thought he saw something in the far corner of one of the monitors, going off the screen.

"Sveta, can you redirect the satellite, or increase the viewing angle? I think I just caught it on monitor number two."

"Which way was it going?"

"Up and off to the right."

"OK. Do you see it now?"

"Yeah. There it is. Can you get the coordinates?"

"I already sent them out to the team."

They continued tracking the submarine and followed it for about five minutes before it submerged again.

About an hour later, from a fishing trawler just of the California coast, one word was flashed back to Arkedy's house, "uspekh" [success].


End file.
